Spain

Hard to believe I will be here in about a month. Can't wait to hug my brother, drink Spanish wine, stay in a villa, and tour the Alhambra. Also can't wait to escape the bitter cold of the American midwest in favor of the Mediterranean coast. Feeling like I should be studying Spanish (in what spare time?), but suppose I will rely on my brother for translation as needed. Starting to count down the days. (35 as of today!)

Grace Paley

At the first meeting of my new class, "American Literature since 1960," we read "A Conversation with my Father" by Grace Paley. Oh my goodness! Her prose is so spare, so compact, so forthright, so clear, yet so dense that a group of graduate students continued uncovering meaning for a solid hour. From a four-page story. I went the following week and used my birthday money to buy her short-story collection "Enormous Changes at the Last Minute." Hello, new friend.

How should we train teachers?

One of the most interesting questions. This hearkens back to my favorite Malcolm Gladwell piece (see "Tenure" post from August). There's a whole series on Marketplace, including interactive features. But I'm old-school. Here's the transcript of what I heard on the radio Thursday night.

http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2010/11/18/pm-improving-lousianas-schools-starting-with-teachers/

Classroom Design

The winner of Slate's classroom design contest has been announced. Brain too tired to comment.

Currently reading volume one of the new Mark Twain autobiography. It's taking a long time just to get through the front material. But it's interesting front material, at least.

Pros and Cons, Kindle Edition

Things I like about my Kindle:

1. Always have a book with me
2. Can always get a book if I read them all
3. One word: Minesweeper
4. Don't need a pen and post-it to annotate a book
5. If I want to look up a word, I don't even have to leave the page
6. Public domain books are free
7. Google is only a click away
8. No backlighting
9. The geek factor

Things I don't care for about my Kindle:

1. Can't read it in the bath. Or at any rate, I don't want to try.
2. All the books are in the same font. I feel like the typeset occasionally adds to the reading experience.
3. New books are still kinda expensive
4. Can't borrower nor lender be
5. No backlighting (I know, it's also a pro. Therefore, it should negate itself. But sometimes it's one, sometimes the other.)

Anecdotal evidence for liking Kindle: 

Every day in 8th grade, for the last 20 minutes before lunch, we all "drop everything and read." One boy hardly ever has anything to read. Sometimes he sits there with his head in his hands, sometimes he's a library creeper, sometimes I catch him listlessly flicking through the pages of something I know he already read. On Thursday, I went up to him with my Kindle and asked if he'd like to check it out. I showed him the basic navigation buttons, then went back to my desk to read. When the kids were dismissed for lunch, he brought my Kindle back over. I noticed he was reading The Mystery of Edwin Drood, and I excitedly told him about its real-life mystery factor (that Charles Dickens died before it was finished). 

The next day, I brought him a paperback copy of Drood so he could take it home with him if he wanted, but I also gave him the Kindle again. He took it to his seat and quietly told his neighbors, "Don't be jealous." I think the cool tech factor sucked him in, and before he knew it, he was reading Dickens and actually making progress (as of yesterday, he has read 2% of the novel.)

Mark Twain's Unexpurgated Autobiography

Despite his hyper-canonized status and over-filled field of researchers, there is no one I would rather spend a lifetime in academia with than Mark Twain. Can't wait for the new book to drop. Here's the story from CBS Sunday Morning.

"Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company."

The shape of learning

Slate dares its readers to redesign the American classroom. How does the changing landscape of American education inform our choices about how we use our physical space?